Alabama
Southern Miss
Women's Basketball Beats Southern Mississippi, 87-61
12/30/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Dec. 30, 2009
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Junior guard Varisia Raffington scored 21 points while senior center Courtney Strauthers notched a career-high 15 points to lead the Alabama women's basketball team to an 87-61 win over the Southern Mississippi Lady Eagles on Wednesday at Coleman Coliseum.
Sophomore guard Ericka Russell added 14 points and four assists while sophomore center Carmen McCoy scored 13 points and tallied seven rebounds. Senior guard Dedrea Magee scored 10 points for the Crimson Tide who improve to 8-5 on the season.
Alabama never trailed the entire game and led by as much as 31 at one point. The Tide forced 25 Southern Miss turnovers, converting those into 35 points. Additionally, Alabama held a 20-2 edge in fast break points and an almost 2-to-1 advantage (46 to 24) in points in the paint. The 87 points are the second highest total the Tide has garnered on the year.
"We're playing the way we practice," Alabama head coach Wendell Hudson said. "We talked about this earlier in the season. If we start making some shots then there are going to be some teams in trouble. We're playing really hard on the defensive end of the court and rebounding the ball. The biggest thing we were missing before was making shots. Now that we are making shots they feel comfortable and we're having some post players step up and play better than they've been playing."
Alabama jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the game's first two minutes and held a comfortable working margin before Southern Miss rallied back. The Lady Eagles pulled within two at 17-15, but the Tide responded with an 18-6 run over the next 6:21 to take a 35-21 lead. A three pointer by junior guard Alyson Butler gave Alabama its biggest lead of the first half, 43-25.
Strauthers scored all 15 of her points in the first half, taking advantage of early Southern Miss foul trouble both from the field and the free throw line. As a whole, the Tide shot 18 of its 20 free throws in the first half.
"We had a lot of different combinations out there but we still played awful well," Hudson said. "One of the things that really stands out is that we had 18 assists with a lot of different combinations."
Alabama expounded upon its 46-31 halftime advantage, taking a 66-42 lead with 12:02 to go in the game. Raffington and Russell led the way with 16 of Alabama's 20 points during that stretch to pull away from the Lady Eagles. A layup by Russell at the 2:00 mark gave the Tide its largest lead of the game at 87-56.
Alabama collected 11 steals versus the Lady Eagles marking the fifth straight game the Tide has notched at least 10 or more steals. Magee, Russell and senior forward Tamara Williams each garnered two apiece for Alabama.
"That (11) is a lot of steals," Hudson said. "We've been playing pretty good on the defensive end with our trapping and doing some things a little different. Right now, if we can continue to shoot the basketball, we're going to feel really good."
Senior forward Pauline Love scored 24 points and pulled down 10 rebounds to lead Southern Miss who fell to 4-8.
Alabama opens Southeastern Conference play when it hosts No. 8 Georgia on Jan. 3 at Coleman Coliseum. Tip-off is set for 2 p.m. (CST).
